MS unveils new, heavily discounted Office 365 University edition; $79.99 for a 4 year subscription

Microsoft announced on Friday a new version of MS Office 365 aimed at students & faculty whose schools do not use their existing online productivity suite. Office 365 University will cost $79.99 for a four year subscription (an extremely substantial discount) that will give students access to all of the standard Office programs: Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher & Access. The University edition will be limited to installation on two computers, and students will be able to renew once for a total of 8 years of access. It’s uncertain whether faculty will be able to do the same.

While Office 365 will not be available until the first quarter of 2013, Microsoft says eligible students can “buy Office University 2010 or Office University for Mac 2011 and receive a free subscription to Office 365 University when it becomes available.”

Additional Office 365 University features will include an extra 20 GB of MS SkyDrive space and 60 minutes of free international calls on Skype.